Reason in Madness: A Tale of a Tub

Author(s): Harold D. Kelling

Reviewed work(s):
Source: PMLA, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Mar., 1954), pp. 198-222
Published by: Modern Language Association
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REASON IN MADNESS:

A TALE OF A TUB

BY HAROLDD. KELLING

O JUDGE from most criticism of Swift's Tale of a Tub, the work is

a skillful and powerful failure, because the faults Swift parodies have
distilled into his own pen. For though the Tale is clearly meant to be an
expose of the literary sins of formless, ephemeral, and subjective writing,
critics find that the brilliance of the book results from Swift's being guilty
of just those sins. One critic finds in the Tale both confusion and the
intrusion of Swift's "insane egotism" and his "sense of insecurity,"'
while other critics find order but at the expense of the other qualities.
Mrs. Miriam K. Starkman examines the intellectual background of the
book thoroughly and concludes that the confusion is the reader's rather
than Swift's but that the Tale is a learned work of merely biographical
and historical interest, a "meaningful and prodigiously skillful espousal
of a lost cause." Ricardo Quintana and Robert C. Elliott find that the
Tale has unity but only because Swift's point of view, that man is essentially irrational, informs all sections of the book.2 Most of the critics,
then, find Swift expressing his subjective attitudes and lacking a subject upon which he could comment with any objectivity and universality.
"So diverse is this subject matter," says Elliott, "that one can not possibly find in it alone a principle of organization."
The critics may be right. But before we consign Swift's most complex
and most immediately impressive work either to the ranks of splendid
failures or to the annals of literary history, we should reixamine it in
order to see whether it is not, as critics have discovered to be true of
James Joyce's Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake, a book in which the qualities of order, universality, and objectivity are somewhat too mysteriously
concealed beneath the surface and have to be dug out. It is hardly possible to maintain, in view of the attitude towards vision and imagination
expressed in the Tale, that the book has the imaginative unity of Ulysses
or Finnegan's Wake, that it is the product of the mythic imagination
described in Joyce's Portrait of the Artist; but I should like to suggest
that the Tale is organized in the old, classical or neo-classical way and
that it has a central subject not too unlike the subject of Joyce's Portrait,
a subject which Swift treats with the objectivity and universality deF. R. Leavis, "The Irony of Swift," in Determinations (London, 1934), pp. 79-108.
Starkman, Swift's Satire on Learning in A Tale of a Tzb (Princeton, 1950); Quintana,
The Mind and Art of Jonathan Swift (Oxford, 1936), pp. 85-96; Elliott, "Swift's Tale of a
Tub: An Essay in Problems of Structure," PMLA, LXVI(1951), 441-455.
2

198

Harold D. Kelling

199

manded in the Portrait. The subject is not seventeenth-century religion

or seventeenth-century learning any more than the subject of Joyce's
Portrait is the Catholic religion, monkish learning, or Irish politics, but a
narrower subject vitally related to learning and religion: literature or
rhetoric. George Sherburn suggests this subject (though he still seems to
interpret the book biographically and historically) in objecting to Quintana's description of the Tale as an "attack on the irrational":
Actuallywhat Swift attacks (thoughin a senseall his workis exposeratherthan
attack) is the perversionof reason.Such perversion(due to self-love)is marked
by selfishcalculation,subtlety, intentionallyconfusingcomplexity,a thirst for
novelty, and (amongotherthings)persuasiveor delusiverhetoric.
Quintana'senthusiasticinterpretationof the Taleof a Tubmighthave brought
out anotherstrikingaspect of the work,had he consideredit as inspiredin part
by this dislikeof the deludingpowersof pervertedreason,or more specifically
by Swift's dislike of proselytizing,of people who wish to force their opinions
upon others.3
I would go a little further than Sherburn and suggest that the expose
of delusive rhetoric, instead of being merely another striking aspect of
the work, is one side of the central subject, rhetoric in general, or literature, and that Swift has also treated the other side by enunciating and
illustrating principles of good rhetoric. The Tale is an oration against
rhetoric and at the same time an example of good rhetoric. If this is
valid, Swift has not written a formless, obscure, excessively learned work
in which he expresses only his own opinions or his psyche. And it is even
possible that, though the Tale lacks the universal appeal of Gulliver's
Travels, it was, as Swift said in the Apology, "calculated to live as long
as our language and our taste admit no great alterations." It is, I suggest, a work of general literary or rhetorical criticism, using as material
the learned and religious literature of the seventeenth century. While
the working out of a young writer's critical philosophy does not have
the wide appeal possessed by the mature literary treatment of man and
society in Gulliver'sTravels, if the Tale is rhetorical criticism and rhetoric
is, as Aristotle said, an offshoot of politics, the emphasis of the work is
not merely literary, in a narrow sense of the word, and the Tale may be
of interest to even the general reader.
It is the prefatory material and the sections ironically called digressions
which make it clear that rhetoric is the subject, which carry on the direct
discussion of rhetoric, and in which the conventional structure of an
oration is followed (though not so closely and explicitly as in Erasmus'
* "Methodsin Books about Swift," SP, xxxv (Oct. 1938), 650.

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Reason in Madness: "A Tale of a Tub"

Praise of Folly).4 In the prefatory material we are given an elaborate

exordium, ostensibly aimed at getting the reader's attention and conciliating him, by, for example, promising that there is no satire in what follows. The narration, the reasons for speaking or writing, is provided in
the Preface. And in the Introduction we are told that rhetoric is the subject when the modern author presents his proposition, the statement and
definition of the subject. In the first paragraph of the Introduction, the
modern author states the subject of his panegyric, rhetoric which is over
the heads of the audience: "Whoever hath an ambition to be heard in a
crowd, must press, and squeeze, and thrust, and climb, with indefatigable
pains, till he has exalted himself to a certain degree of altitude above
them." At the end of the next paragraph, however, the modern author
points out two major "inconveniences" in the airy edifices erected by
the modern's ambitious orators: "First, That the foundations being laid
too high, they have been often out of sight, and ever out of hearing.
Secondly, That the materials being very transitory, have suffered much
from inclemencies of air, especially in these north-west regions." Swift
thus indicates to the reader that, rather than a panegyric, he is writing
a satire on delusive rhetoric, and he hints at the rest of his subject,
rhetoric which is not over the heads of the audience and transitory but
rhetoric aimed at the reason, which the audience can understand and
which lasts.
In the next paragraph the modern author presents his partition, the
dividing of the subject and the indication of the main topics. "Therefore,
towards the just performance of this great work," he says, "there remain
but three methods that I can think on; whereof the wisdom of our an4
Swift is obviouslyfollowingthe traditionof Erasmus,Lucian,and others,and writing
a mock panegyric(see the Introductionto Hoyt Hudson'seditionof Erasmus'Praise of
Follyfor a discussionof this tradition).The case for Swift'sadherenceto the conventional
formof an orationis seeminglyweakenedby the fact that insteadof a summaryandmoving
perorationwe aregiven the flat Conclusion.But if we acceptJamesL. Clifford'silluminat-

ing analysis ("Swift's Mechanical Operationof the Spirit," in Pope and his Contemporaries,
Essays presentedto GeorgeSherburn, pp. 135-146), the Mechanical Operationof the Spirit is

the real conclusionand the perorationof the Tale. In it, as Cliffordshows, Swift'sbasic
themesare madeunforgettable;it is the most "moving,"i.e., the most revoltingsectionof
the Tale of a Tubvolume.It is, even morethan the rest of the volume,clearlyconcerned
with rhetoric,with the questions,"by what methodsthis teacherarrivesat his gifts, or
spirit,or light;and by what intercoursebetweenhim and his assembly,it is cultivatedand
supported."The first section deals with the audienceand the second with the orator,
particularlywith deliveryin the discussionof the Art of Canting.A rhetoricalvocabularyexample,disposition,gesture, motion, argument-is used more frequentlythan in the
Tale.It seemsprobablethat Swift is not only followingthe conventionalstructureof an
orationin the Tale,writingthe MechanicalOperationas the peroration,but is makingthe
fact that rhetoricis his subjectclearestin the peroration.

Harold D. Kelling

201

cestors being highly sensible, has, to encourage all aspiring adventurers,

thought fit to erect three wooden machines for the use of those orators,
who desire to talk much without interruption. These are, the pulpit, the
ladder, and the stage-itinerant." Now if we took the modern author's
division seriously, we would expect that, in the rest of the Tale, preaching
represented by the pulpit, faction or political oratory represented by
the ladder, and Grub-Street writing represented by the stage-itinerant
were to be considered in turn. We would expect also that legal oratory
would not be considered, in spite of its traditionally close association
with rhetoric, since the modern has grown fond of the number three and
has arbitrarily rejected the Bench and Bar from his list of oratorial
machines. But as the rest of the Introduction makes clear, the modern
author does not follow his system. Rather than considering preaching,
political oratory, and Grub-Street writing separately, he lumps together
all kinds of rhetorical communication, including legal oratory, and reduces them to the level of Grub-Street productions.
While the modern author follows the modern forms and divides his
subject, then, Swift indicates the unity of his subject. By parodying
"that prudent method observed by many other philosophers and great
clerks, whose chief art in division has been to grow fond of some proper
mystical number," Swift makes his point that deceptive rhetoric is not
divided into several kinds-religious, learned, Grub-Street, legal-but
that all rhetoric aimed over the heads of the audience has certain characteristics in common (as, he implies, does all rhetoric which is aimed at
the reason). The unity of the subject is unwittingly admitted by the
modern author, who says in concluding his discussion of the oratorial
machines, "Now this physico-logical scheme of oratorial receptacles or
machines contains a great mystery; being a type, a sign, an emblem, a
shadow, a symbol, bearing analogy to the spacious commonwealth of
writers, and to those methods, by which they must exalt themselves to a
certain eminency above the inferior world." The oratorial machines bear
analogy to the spacious commonwealthof writers and they represent
methods,no longer divisions, of delusive rhetoric.
Having informed the careful reader (and only a careful reader can
understand the Tale) that there are characteristics common to all good
and bad rhetoric, Swift proceeds to identify, though not directly or simply, the characteristics of delusive rhetoric and to indicate, by opposition,
the characteristics of rational rhetoric, in the modern author's explanation of the symbolism of his wooden machines. The pulpit represents
obscurity and the use of abstract language: "By the pulpit are adumbrated the writings of our modern saints in Great Britain, as they have
spiritualized and refined them, from the dross and grossness of sense and

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Reason in Madness: "A Tale of a Tub"

human reason." The ladder represents the intrusion of the author's

personality and his dogmatic opinions into his work (the ladder symbolizes faction), formlessness (the orators of the ladder are turned off
"before they can reach within many steps of the top") and plagiarism
(the ladder is a "preferment attained by transferring of property, and a
confounding of meum and tuum"). And the stage-itinerant symbolizes
superficiality and ephemerality, the lack of content resulting from
pandering to the taste of the times, the concern with novelty for its own
sake: "Under the stage-itinerant are couched those productions designed
for the pleasure and delight of mortal man; such as Six-penny-worth of
Wit, Westminster Drolleries, Delightful Tales, Compleat Jesters, and the
like; by which the writers of and for Grub Street, have in these latter
ages so nobly triumphed over time." Swift, whose position is the opposite
of the modern author's, is announcing that he will ridicule the characteristics which the modern will praise and illustrate, and he is indicating
that he will defend and illustrate writing addressed to human reason, in
which the author does not intrude, in which borrowed learning is integrated into a carefully organized work, and which can, if we read carefully, triumph over time.
In the rest of the Tale Swift follows his scheme of exposing the characteristics of delusive rhetoric symbolized in the oratorial machines. In
the digressions and the prefatory material the expose is explicit. Obscurity and abstraction are exposed, for example, in the material involving the Rosicrucians; plagiarism is treated in the Digression in the Modern Kind; the intrusion of the author is parodied throughout the Tale,
particularly in the Preface; ephemerality is a constant theme, particularly in the Dedication to Prince Posterity; and formlessness is of course
parodied throughout the Tale. "Modern" or Grub-Street writing, which
displays the characteristics of all delusive rhetoric, not merely the characteristics of learned rhetoric, is discussed. The Digression on Critics
deals not merely with literary critics but with all writers who use destructive criticism as a means of winning the approval of the audience
(it applies, for example, to Puritan methods in controversy and to the
polemics of Hobbes and other philosophers). A Digression in the Modern
Kind and A Digression in Praise of Digressions satirically exaggerate
tendencies to pretentiousness, obscurity, and sensationalism which can
be found in religious and philosophical writing as well as in Grub-Street
writing. Although the digressions ostensibly deal with learning, then, we
can hardly be persuaded by the modern writer's rhetoric that the learning
displayed is meaningful and important, and it is apparent that the digressions, using learned writing as material, are really concerned with
rhetoric, not with learning. In all the digressions Swift, rather than ad-

Harold D. Kelling

203

vancing learned theories which are opposed to the modern author's,

stresses the fact that his rhetorical theory is the opposite of the modern's
and he gives us illustrations of good rhetorical practice; since we are not
fooled by the modern writer, the digressions are examples of non-delusive
rhetoric.
Now if we see that rhetoric is the subject of the whole Tale, the prefatory material makes important contributions to the meaning. In the
various prefatory sections, the modern author rambles on, dedicating
and prefacing, observing all the modern forms; and if there is no central
subject, Sherburn is justified in saying in A Literary History of England
that the "multiplication of preliminaries to the Tale, though each is in
itself a gem, is excessive." But since all of the sections are parodies of
the ways in which rhetoric-learned, religious, or other-can be used to
keep the reader from thinking about what is said, by appealing for tolerance towards the writer, by flattery, by directions for reading the following treatise, each prefatory section helps to develop the central subject,
and not merely on the negative side. For Swift is able to prevent each
preliminary section from becoming that which is being exposed. The
Dedication to Lord Somers, parodying fulsome and false dedications
written merely to sell more copies of a book, is a convincing compliment
to Somers and, because there is no tedious harangue on Somers' virtues
and his friendship for the writer, a dedication which does not distract the
reader's attention from the content of the Tale. The dedication and the
prefatory material, as well as the digressions, deal importantly with the
content, the definition of good and bad rhetoric.
The sections containing the allegory of the three coats present more
of a problem, since in these sections rhetoric is mentioned only rarely
and they seem to be concerned with an entirely separate subject, religion.
But if we see that rhetoric has been announced as the subject of the
whole Tale and if we look closely at the sections of coat allegory, it is
apparent that the coat allegory is not really concerned with religion but
is an example of Grubaean rhetoric. The allegory is not written from the
point of view of an Anglican clergyman, interested in demonstrating the
necessity of interpreting the New Testament reasonably and applying its
"plain easy directions," but from the point of view of a Grub-Street
writer intent on proving that Jack and Peter have purposes and use
methods similar to his own and are, in fact, along with Wotton and the
other learned moderns, members of the Grub-Street brotherhood and
successful delusive orators. Both Jack and Peter depart from traditional
forms (both ignore the will), they talk obscurely and over the heads of
an audience (Peter tries to prove that bread contains the quintessence of
beef, mutton, veal, venison, partridge, plum-pudding, and custard;

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Reason in Madness: "A Tale of a Tub"

Jack says that a copy of the father's will is meat, drink, cloth, the philosopher's stone, and the universal medicine), they are of course violently
attached to their own opinions, they plagiarize (some writers affirm that
Jack copied his Aeolists from the original at Delphos), they follow their
fancy rather than their reason, they are, finally, madmen and therefore
admirable moderns. And in trying to prove that Jack and Peter are his
brethren, the modern author does not write a sermon or a serious dissertation on religion but uses the methods of the "Grubaean Sages,"
who have "always chosen to convey their precepts and their arts, shut up
within the vehicles of types and fables."
His allegory illustrates perfectly the qualities symbolized in the oratorial machines, especially the qualities of subjectivity and dogmatism.
He starts with the subjective and paradoxical thesis that the best religion
is that which deceives best-religion is a coat and the finer the betterand he goes on to develop dogmatically the implications of that thesis
as if they were true and incontestable. When Peter fails to persuade his
brothers that bread is the quintessence of beef and plum-pudding,
Martin and Jack try to restore their coats to the primitive state. Martin
almost succeeds and is lost from the ranks of the moderns. The Grubaean
therefore concentrates on Jack, who founds the "epidemic sect of Aeolists," a successful system of delusive rhetoric. In the Digression on
Madness, Jack represents religion in the group of mad orators who deceive themselves and then others, "a strong delusion always operating
from without as vigorously as from within." And finally, in Section xI,
we learn that Jack and Peter are almost exactly similar; both are mad,
both follow imagination rather than reason. The modern author has
followed his original equation of religion and deception to its logical
conclusion and has proved his point, that the best religion is the most
deceptive. And in doing so he has not only demonstrated the subjectivity
and partisanship of delusive rhetoric but has written obscurely (in Section vi he desires that the learned commentators "will proceed with great
caution upon certain dark points"-and the allegory would be dark indeed without the notes which Wotton and Swift thoughtfully provided),
he has neglected form, as he casually points out in the beginning of
Section xi, and he has larded his allegory with plagiarized phrases.
Swift obviously does not allow the modern writer to convince us that
the best religion is the most superficial and deceptive. Nor, however, does
he develop the normal Anglican point of view that the New Testament,
interpreted by reason, should serve as a guide. His emphasis is not upon
religion but upon the way an inflexible and decorated allegory-whether
used in a sermon or in Reynard the Fox-can be used to deceive an audience. His distrust of an allegory which insists upon an absolutely valid

Harold D. Kelling

205

relationship between two different objects or conceptions is shown in

other places-in the Digression Concerning Critics in the Tale and in
Gulliver's Travels, for example.5 In the coat allegory he is merely using
religious material to express that distrust; by making absurd the modern's equation of religion and the conclusions he draws from that equation, he exposes not Catholics and Dissenters but the faults of the allegorical method and of delusive rhetoric in general.
It can of course be objected that such an interpretation makes the
"Tale proper," the coat allegory, play a relatively unimportant part in
the book. That objection can be answered, however, by reading the sections of coat allegory, noticing the simplicity of the texture, the elaborate
decoration of a single point, the frequency of dialogue, and the raciness
of the diction. Only in Section Ili, in the discussion of the clothes philosophy, and in Section vm, on the Aeolists, are there passages over which
we have to puzzle. Read by themselves, the sections of the coat allegory
are superficial and amusing; and Swift indicates that it was his purpose
to make them seem superficial when the modern author says in the
Digression in the Modern Kind, "throughout this divine treatise, [I]
have skilfully kneaded up both [instruction and diversion] together, with
a layer of utile and a layer of dulce." Read separately, the coat allegory
illustrates writing which is superficial and aims only at delight, and the
digressions illustrate writing which goes below the surface (too far below)
and aims at instruction. The modern writer encourages his readers, who,
except for the learned readers mentioned in A Farther Digression, are
interested only in entertainment, to skip the digressions and find delight
in the coat allegory. We of course fall into a trap (as some anthologists
have done) if we take the modern author seriously and read the coat
allegory or the digressions separately, looking for pure delight in the
coat allegory or solemn instruction in the digressions. Read in context,
the coat allegory is not superficial, because it is so closely related to the
digressions both by the subject and by themes and images. It illustrates
fairly economically the characteristics of delusive rhetoric (it is only
rarely, as in Section iv with its multiplication of Peter's inventions,
that the texture becomes so light that the coat allegory is an imitation
rather than a parody) and themes and images from the digressionsthe body of the Tale-are woven into the coat.
Swift follows his rhetorical theory all through the Tale, then, con5 Swift's distrust of rigid allegory has the same basis as his objection to
metaphors or
similes which ignore the differences between the things compared. When, e.g., Tindal
writes, "And the body-politic, whether ecclesiastical or civil, must be dealt with after the
same manner as the body-natural," Swift comments, "What, because it is called a body,
and is a simile, must it hold in all circumstances?" (Prose Works, ed, T, Scott, II, 110).

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Reason in Madness: "A Tale of a Tub"

stantly illustrating good rhetoric at the same time that he exposes bad
rhetoric. But it is in the Digression on Madness, where the modern
author unites his two subjects and investigates the cause of the success
of all writers or speakers who influence public opinion, that Swift makes
most clear the opposition between his rhetorical theory and the modern
author's. Swift builds up the details of the modern's theory in the digressions, constantly undercutting it with general hints at an acceptable
theory, and in the climactic Digression on Madness he states the opposition by the clear antithesis, reason and madness. Swift skillfully maneuvers the modern author into reducing his delusive rhetoric to the product
of a mad orator addressed to a mad audience. In the various digressions
the Grubaean, since he is a learned man, has frequent recourse to the
"places of logic" such as definition, parts, effects, things adjoining, contraries. And in the Digression on Madness he attempts to clinch his case
for the moderns by an argument from the important place of logic,
cause. What impels a writer or speaker, he asks, to try to "reduce the
notions of all mankind exactly to the same length, and breadth, and
heighth of his own?" What qualities in the audience allow him to succeed? He triumphantly finds that the cause for the use and success of
delusive rhetoric is the same cause which is responsible for the establishment of new empires by conquest: modern writers, like conquerors, are
mad, and they succeed in bringing over others because the audience too
is mad. Man is essentially irrational.
That is the modern's point but it is not Swift's. Swift's position is the
opposite: "the brain in its natural position and state of serenity, disposeth its owner to pass his life in the common forms, without any
thought of subduing multitudes to his own power, his reasons, or his
visions." Orators and audience are not essentially irrational but are capable of reason. Swift has carried the modern writer's position to its logical
and absurd conclusion, by creating a mad world in which the modern's
rhetoric is appropriate. In effect, he has dramatized the characteristics
of delusive rhetoric by personifying them in the symbols of a mad orator
and a mad audience. Modern writing is formless; a madman is vague and
disoriented. Modern writing is factional and the author intrudes; a madman is completely introverted. Modern writing is abstracted from the
dross and grossness of sense and human reason; a madman has taken
leave of reality. Modern writers plagiarize and in their ephemeral writing
seek novelty for its own sake; a madman has no sense of property and
no memory of the past. But Swift is not maintaining that delusive orators
and their audiences are mad and therefore not responsible for their actions. He has exaggerated the characteristics of delusive rhetoric to make
them perfectly ridiculous, and his point is rather that actual writers and

Harold D. Kelling

207

speakers who use the methods symbolized in the oratorial machines are
knaves, and audiences who are moved by such methods are fools. Both
orators and audiences should know better. An orator who is not a knave
and an audience not composed of fools will use reason.
Reason is a crucial word in the Digression on Madness and therefore
in the Tale and a word which, since it now has connotations of coldness
and dry logic, has been responsible for misinterpretations of the Tale.
Since Swift does not define reason and does not state his positive theory
of rhetoric with sufficient clarity for a modern reader, I shall discuss
briefly the meaning of reason and the theory of rhetoric which Swift
illustrates in the Tale. Reason had many meanings in Swift's time, of
course, and there were conflicting theories of rhetoric; but some of the
seventeenth-century Anglicans use "reason" with the meaning it has in
the Tale and develop a rhetorical theory similar to Swift's. Since they
define reason and develop their theories in more detail than Swift does
in A Tale of a Tub, they can give us clues to the rhetorical positives of
the book.
Like Swift, the Anglicans whom I shall discuss (chiefly Robert South,
Isaac Barrow, and Simon Patrick)6 were intensely concerned with the
dangers of demagoguery. South says, for example, "a plausible, insignificant word, in the mouth of an expert demagogue, is a dangerous and
dreadful weapon." And though they were primarily interested in the
oratory of the pulpit rather than the rhetoric of the ladder or the stageitinerant, the characteristics which they attacked in the non-conformist
preachers are those which Swift symbolized in the three wooden
machines. They find that the Puritans speak over the heads of the
audience, using abstract and obscure language. South says of the Puritans, "And these impertinent and unpremeditated enlargements, they
look upon as the motions and breathings of the Spirit, and therefore
much beyond those carnal ordinances of sense and reason."7 The intrusion into a sermon of a preacher's private imaginings is attacked. In
Simon Patrick's Friendly Debatewe have this dialogue after the conformist has asked the non-conformist what is meant by an "experimental"
preacher: "N. C. I mean, one that preaches his own Experiences in the
I am dealing with only a very few of the Anglican preachers of the seventeenth century
and I am looking for similarities rather than differences, since my purpose is merely to
elucidate the meaning of "reason" and to amplify the positive rhetorical theory of the
Tale. The Anglican preachers are considered in some detail and the origin of their rhetorical
theories is discussed in W. F. Mitchell, English Pulpit Oratoryfrom Andrewes to Tillotson
(London, 1932).
7 South, Sermons (Oxford, 1823), n, 123; III, 36.

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Reason in Madness: "A Tale of a Tub"

ways of God. C, You do not well know what you mean. For this is either
the same that I now told you: or else it may signifie no more than one
that preaches his own Fancie."8 The non-conformists are attacked for
their lack of interest in form; the conformist in A Continuation of the
Friendly Debate says, "And so many of your Prayers have [no form] at
all; but are then thought most heavenly,when they are most confused."9
Like Swift, the Anglicans denounce the search for novelty and the
mechanical use of someone else's words.
In general, the Anglicans attack the non-conformists for, like the mad
orator of the Digression on Madness, plucking the strings of the audience's passions, and they defend the appeal to reason. "So their Fancies
or their Affections be but tickled," the conformist of the Friendly Debate
says of a non-conformist audience, "they care not whether it be with
Reason or without" (p. 173). While examples could be multiplied to show
that the seventeenth-century Anglicans anticipate Swift's expose of delusive rhetoric, I am concerned here, as an elucidation of Swift's positives
in the Tale, with what the Anglicans meant by reason and preaching
"with Reason."
Now "reason" is one of the words which Hooker called "bugs words,
because what they mean you do not indeed as you ought apprehend,"'0
and it can have a great many different meanings for different writers.
But the meaning which it has for the Anglican preachers when they refer
to human reason, reason which is used in rhetoric, is fairly simple and
untechnical. It is obvious, first of all, that reason was considered to be
dependent upon the evidence of the senses. Robert South says, "Reason
discoursing upon grounds of religion, builds only upon another world;
but sense fixes upon this. And since religion borrows much from reason,
and reason itself has all conveyed to it by sense; it is no wonder if all
knowledge and desire resolves into sense, as its first foundation" (v, 406).
Evidence of the senses was trusted, then, but only if it were corrected by
reason or understanding. South's position is the normal one: "It is the
ennobling office of the understanding, to correct the fallacious and mistaken reports of sense, and to assure us that the staff in the water is
straight, though our eye would tell us it is crooked" (I, 387).
Reason, which has all conveyed to it by sense, can still correct the mistaken reports of sense because it makes use of experience. The reason
consults the memory, in which the results of past sense experience are
stored; it compares things present with things past and comes to conclu8 A Friendly DebateBetween a Conformist and a Non-Conformist,5th ed. (London, 1669),

p. 35.
9 (London,1669),p. 108.

10Of the Laws Ecclesiastical Polity, Bk. Ch. vii, 6 n.

of
(Works, Oxford, 1874, p. 222).
I,

Harold D. Kelling

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sions. "The ways that lead us to the knowledg of all Conclusions, of

which we have any knowledg," says John Hales, " . . . are but two:
first, Experience; secondly, Ratiocination; and the one of these is commonly the way to the other, by comparing one thing with another,
and applying Actives and Passives, and thence producing sundry Conclusions."" An individual knows that the stick is straight before it is put
into the water and after it is taken out. If an individual is confronted
with a moral problem, he makes a reasonable choice if he remembers the
results of his actions in similar situations in the past and avoids a harmful
action. Reason is closely connected with experience, then, and the two
terms are sometimes used almost synonymously.12
According to the Anglicans, reason is not a very sophisticated faculty;
it is simply common sense, which applies the results of experience. But
the orator, whose duty it was to appeal to reason, had to be extremely
sophisticated and skillful, since he was not to impose his reason on members of his audience but to enable them to use their own reason. It is the
law of conversation, says Isaac Barrow, that a man has an "absolute
right to use and follow his own reason; and he that affects to deprive any
man thereof, will pass for a petty tyrant, a clown, or an idiot." The Anglicans, who were concerned with addressing a large and unlearned audience, had therefore to deal with common sense experiences. John
Eachard, objecting as Swift does to the use of outlandish metaphors
taken from objects or events in the Indies or at the bottom of the sea,
points out that Christ used metaphors involving objects "plain and familiar, even almost to children themselves, that can but taste and see; and
to men of the lowest education and meanest capacities." Gilbert Burnet
says that "the Reasons of them [things] must be made as sensible to the
People as possible. . . . For the carrying these Matters beyond the plain
Observation of Mankind, makes that the Whole is looked on as a piece
of Rhetorick."'3
The Anglicans had, moreover, to stay at the level of particular experience if the reader were to use his own judgment. They consistently
attack the use of "round and general words" and advocate the use of
particulars. Instead of using precepts to persuade, therefore, they favored
1 "A Letter to an Honourable
Person, concerning the Weapon-Salve," in Golden Remains of the Ever MlemorableMr. John Hales (London, 1688), p. 361.
;2 The phrases "reason and
experience" or "common sense and experience" are extremely
frequent in the writings of the Anglicans (and in Swift). A particularly clear example of the
use of reason and experience as synonyms occurs in South, III, 171.
13Barrow, Works, ed. A.
Napier (Cambridge, Engl., 1859), II, 218; The Groundsand Occasions of the Contemptof the ClergyEnquired into (London, 1670) (in E. Arber, An English
Garner. vn, 274); Burnet, A Discourse of the Pastoral Care (London, 1692), p. 219.

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Reason in Madness: "A Tale of a Tub"

examples, which, as Barrow said, transform a "notional universality into

the reality of singular subsistence." Precepts, Barrow points out, "are delivered in an universal and abstracted manner, naked, and void of all circumstantial attire, without any intervention, assistance, or suffrage of
sense." Good examples, on the other hand, represent the business "like
a picture exposed to sense, having the parts orderly disposed and completely united, suitably clothed and dressed up in its circumstances" (iI,
500). John Hales, similarly, praises the use of parables as the "plainest
and most familiar way," which "stoops to the capacity of the Learner,
as being drawn either from Trees, or Beasts, or from some ordinary, common and known actions of men" (p. 170).
In their emphasis on reason, then, these writers, like Swift in A Tale of
a Tub, are trying to combat the rhetoric of those who impose their
opinions upon an audience by talking or writing over their heads and at
the same time appealing to their lower passions. They do not, however,
advocate combatting such rhetoric by appealing merely to the intellect,
to reason as a cold, logical faculty. Working in the area of rhetoric, they
aim to persuade, to move, rather than to present truth, and they realize
the necessity of appealing to the passions. "The pleasures of the sensitive,
inferior appetites," says Robert South, "though they are not in themselves the best objects, yet they are certainly the best representations
and conveyances of such objects to the mind; since without some kind
of sensible dress, things too fine for men's apprehensions can never much
work upon their affections" (III, 132). They realize that it is necessary to
appeal to interest, "the grand wheel and spring that moves the whole universe." "For, if we will be but true to the first principles of nature," says
South, "we shall find, that all arguments made use of to persuade the
mind of man, must be founded upon something that is grateful, acceptable, and pleasing to nature; and that, in short, is a man's easy and comfortable enjoyment of himself, in all the powers, faculties, and affections,
both of his soul and body" (IIm,137). They realize the necessity of adapting their sermons to the audience: "With ordinary minds, such as much
the greatest part of the world are, it is the suitableness, not the evidence
of a truth, that makes it to be assented to" (South, I, 166).
In theory and practice the Anglicans differ from the non-conformists
whom they attack in that, though they move the passions of their audiences, they do so through the reason or understanding. Using words
which refer to particular and common sense experiences, using familiar
examples, they demonstrate vividly and movingly the probable consequences of a particular action and allow the reader to use his reason, to
consult his past experience, and to judge the validity of the writer's or
speaker's conclusions. The advocates and practitioners of the rhetoric

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of reason did not regard even their uneducated audiences as fools but as
human beings possessed of the gift of reason, the use of which it was the
duty of the writer to encourage. He must help his audience to "look
through ... things, and scan them exactly, valuing them, not according
to fallacious impressions of sense, or illusive dreamings of fancy, but
according to sound dictates of reason" (Barrow, III, 45). He must help the
audience to avoid the usual habit of men, which Barrow describes: "in
our taxations of things we do ordinarily judge (or rather not judge, but
fancy, not hearing or regarding any dictate of reason) like beasts; prizing
things merely according to present sense or show, not examining their
intrinsic natures, or looking forward into their proper fruits and consequences" (III, 62). To do this, the writer or speaker must have a profound
knowledge of human nature, of the experience and the motives of his
audience, as well as skill in language. He cannot preach only his own experiences; if he does, says Robert South, he will do little else but "shew
the world how easily fools may be imposed upon by knaves" (III, 20).
These writers, then, did not abjure human learning, from which they
could learn a great deal about the nature of man and his motives, nor
did they forbid the use of the art of rhetoric. As long as they appealed
to reason they could use rhetorical devices and therefore, Isaac Barrow
argues in a sermon "Against Foolish Talking and Jesting" (II, 1-35),
they could use wit and humor, or facetious discourse, since it is difficult
"to define the limits which sever rhetoric and raillery." A manner of
speaking "out of the simple and plain way (such as reason teacheth and
proveth things by)" is justified because "good reason may be apparelled
in the garb of wit." By using facetious discourse, a writer can get the
audience to listen and can "give reason some competent scope, some fair
play with them." Barrow's sermon demonstrates very clearly the Anglican attitude towards rhetoric and satire, and is of particular interest in
relation to A Tale of a Tub. It is, in fact, almost a discourse in the simple
and plain way on the subject which the Tale treats in its witty and humorous way. It is permissible, says Barrow, to expose things base and
vile to due contempt: "When to impugn them with downright reason,
or to check them by serious discourse, would signify nothing; then representing them in a shape strangely ugly to the fancy, and thereby raising
derision at them, may effectually discountenance them." And in a
sentence Barrow expresses what I take to be the justification of the
method of the Tale: "He that will contest things apparently decided by
sense and experience, or who disavows clear principles of reason, approved by general consent, and the common sense of men, what other
hopeful way is there of proceeding with him, than pleasantly to explode
his conceits?"

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Reason in Madness: "A Tale of a Tub"

The Anglicans I have mentioned demanded, then, that a preacher

know not only his subject, religion, but the art of persuasion, and their
rhetorical theory is sophisticated and complex. They consider the nature
of language and find in the senses and experience common denominators
for communication. They consider the psychology of the audience and
they are aware of all the available means of persuasion. It is probably
true that because they emphasized the appeal to common sense as a way
of persuading a large and unlearned audience and because they were
primarily interested in practical morality, in bringing religion down to
meddle with the lives of their congregations, their sermons lack the heroic
and exalted note of earlier sermons. But because of their emphases and
because they saw preaching as an art, their theory was one which suited
ideally the needs of a satirist who was intent on using the actions of
men as material for lasting literature. Swift may have got his rhetorical
principles from other sources, but those principles were current in the
writings of the Anglicans. He shared their positives-reason, common
sense, the common forms-and their rhetorical principles, and in the
Tale he refers to those positives and applies those principles to all kinds
of literature. His subject is the art of persuasion and religious literature
is only one of the kinds.
In the Digression on Madness, as I have said, Swift confronts madness
with "reason," and it would seem to be obvious that his position is
directly opposite to the modern author's and is the position of the Anglicans just discussed. The modern writer, now blissfully mad, having succeeded in exalting himself above his audience, having proved to his own
satisfaction that his position is irrefutable, contemptuously dismisses the
opposing position of Swift and the Anglicans and thus states their theory
of the rhetoric of reason. When he asks himself, "from what faculty of
the soul the disposition arises in mortal man, of taking it into his head
to advance new systems, with such an eager zeal, in things agreed on all
hands impossible to be known," he calmly replies, not expecting a rational
response, that these grand innovators are mad, "having generally proceeded in the common course of their words and actions, by a method
very different from the vulgar dictates of unrefined reason." Swift is
clearly announcing that he is an advocate of the rhetoric of reason.
Again, when the modern author says that it is the "humble and civil
design" of every innovator in the empire of reason "to reduce the notions
of all mankind exactly to the same length, and breadth, and heighth of
his own," Swift is indicating that a humble and civil orator will adapt
his discourse to the reason of the audience and will not try to impose his
own opinions.

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213

But there are two frequently quoted and interpreted, and certainly
crucial paragraphs (pages 494 to 497 in the Oxford edition), in which
Swift has been seen using his own reason and trying to impose his opinions on the audience of the Tale. In the first paragraph there is no evidence that he is doing so; his position is clearly still the opposite of the
modern's. The modern rejects and therefore states for Swift the position
that the writer or speaker cannot preach his private experience, he must
not seek novelty for its own sake, he must appeal to common sense, he
must be learned: "For the brain, in its natural position and state of
serenity, disposeth its owner to pass his life in the common forms, without any thought of subduing multitudes to his own power, his reason, or
his visions; and the more he shapes his understanding by the pattern of
human learning, the less he is inclined to form parties after his particular
notions, because that instructs him in his private infirmities, as well as
in the stubborn ignorance of the people." The modern writer states the
opposite of Swift's position when he praises the ideal of his orator, "when
a man's fancy gets astride of his reason, when imagination is at cuffs
with the senses, and common understanding, as well as common sense,
is kicked out of doors." When the Grubaean says, "Those entertainments
and pleasures we most value in life, are such as dupe and play the wag
with the senses," Swift is obviously referring to the doctrine that the
senses and sense experience provide the common denominators for rational communication and that it is the duty of the writer or speaker to
give fair play to the individual reason. The Grubaean lightly dismisses
the memory in comparison to the imagination, which is "acknowledged
to be the womb of things, and the other allowed to be no more than the
grave." But Swift is depending on his audience's remembering the
traditional role of the memory as the repository of sense experience, to
be consulted by the reason.
It is the second paragraph which has been most confusing and misleading, because critics have decided that the meaning of "reason"
changes abruptly and comes to mean, not "common sense" possessed by
anyone in his right mind but the destructive intelligence of Swift the
satirist. "In the proportion that credulity is a more peaceful possession
of the mind than curiosity," the paragraph starts, "so far preferable is
that wisdom, which converses about the surface, to that pretended
philosophy, which enters into the depths of things, and then comes
gravely back with information and discoveries, that in the inside they
are good for nothing." Here and up to the last line of the paragraph,
F. R. Leavis assumes, there are only two alternatives offered to the
reader; we must choose to accept either surface wisdom or the conclusions of pretended philosophy, reached by the over-curious "reason"

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Reasonin Madness: "A Tale of a Tub"

of the scientist or mechanist philosopher or anatomizing satirist, which

goes far below the surface. Swift deludes the reader, Leavis assumes, into
accepting the first alternative, surface wisdom. " 'Credulity'," he says,
"standing ironically for the 'common forms'-the sane, socially sustained, common-sense illusions-is the positive that the reader must
associate himself with and rest on for safety." Consequently, when the
reader comes to the end of the paragraph and finds that his position is
that of "being a fool among knaves," he suddenly reverses his position
and accepts the second alternative, the view that if we look below the
surface we shall find everything worthless. According to Leavis, Swift
destroys all illusion and, instead of persuading the reader to use his reason
to see things as they are, forces the reader to accept the satirist's private
conclusions that things are rotten below the surface.
Robert C. Elliott disagrees with Leavis' conclusion that there is nothing left after the "fools among knaves" line; there is left, he says, "the
integrity which enables Swift to face reality, as he sees it, without compromise." But he agrees with Leavis that "reason" means the private
reason of Swift the satirist-"not the 'reason' of the Augustan Enlightenment, associated with the 'common Forms' and common sense" -which
opens and pierces and mangles. Both interpretations assume that reason,
which all along in the Tale has been a faculty possessed by any sane
person, enabling him to come to common sense conclusions, has become
a faculty possessed only by Swift, which goes below the surface and finds
little (Elliott) or nothing (Leavis) good.
But there is no justification for thinking that Swift has, irresponsibly
and without telling the reader, changed the meaning of "reason." In the
paragraph there is the third alternative, "reason" with its usual meaning,
"common sense," and Swift, instead of, as Leavis and Elliott believe,
giving the reader a choice of the modern's superficial wisdom or Swift's
destructive conclusions, is telling the reader to use his own common
sense in understanding the paragraph. Swift gives us two absurd choices;
we can either credulously accept the modern author's notion that things
are all they appear to be on the surface, or the opposite notion that in
the inside everything is rotten. But the commonsense attitude, learned
from experience, is that things are not all they seem to be, yet they are
not all worthless; people, for example, are neither perfectly good nor
perfectly evil. And it is this commonsense attitude, to which Swift has
appealed all through the Tale, that he now explicitly refers to with the
word "reason." The modern author first, in his praise of credulity, eliminates reason from the discussion by saying, "The two senses, to which all
objects first address themselves, are the sight and the touch; these never
examine farther than the colour, the shape, the size, and whatever other

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215

qualities dwell, or are drawn by art upon the outward of bodies." Here
there is no room for the use of the senses besides sight and touch, or for
experience. Then, however, the modern brings reason into the discussion,
when he says, "and then comes reason officiously with tools for cutting,
and opening, and mangling, and piercing, offering to demonstrate, that
they are not of the same consistence quite through." Swift is calling into
play the reader's commonsense attitude that things are not all they
seem; he is indicating that credulity is foolish. The modern author, however, seems to reject the use of reason, as he goes on, "Now I take all
this to be the last degree of perverting nature; one of whose eternal laws
it is, to put her best furniture forward." (Again, the common sense attitude is that "nature," that which is normal and common, is not glittering
and deceptive.) But he does not really reject the use of reason; he rejects
only extreme cynicism which he perversely calls reason. He uses not the
tools of reason-the other senses and experience-but the tools of the
scientist or the mechanist philosopher or the destructive satirist. He says
in the next sentence that "reason is certainly in the right" in doubting
appearances, but he gives us the results of some late experiments to
prove his point: "Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly
believe how much it altered her person for the worse. Yesterday I
ordered the carcass of a beau to be stripped in my presence, when we
were all amazed to find so many unsuspected faults under one suit of
clothes. Then I laid open his brain, his heart, and his spleen; but I
plainly perceived at every operation, that the farther we proceeded, we
found the defects increase upon us in number and bulk."
These experiments and conclusions are not based on the use of reason
but are the experiments and conclusions of a madman, who has gone far
beyond commonsense limits. The commonsense attitude (to state it
simply and neglect the effectiveness with which Swift stimulates that
attitude by his vivid and moving images) is that, for one thing, beaux
and harlots (eighteenth-century prostitutes were punished by flaying)
are not examples of "nature" putting her best furniture forward, and,
for another thing, the experiments do not make use of the senses and
experience but show a distrust of reason. Anyone who used common
sense would realize that a flaying would alter a woman's person for the
worse and would know, furthermore, that a woman, particularly a harlot,
was not all that she seemed on the surface. He would know, without laying open the brain, the heart, and the spleen (which of course would
prove nothing), that the clothes of a beau covered a multitude of faults,
and not merely physical but moral faults. The commonsense attitude
that beaux and harlots are worthless ot evil members of society needs
no logical or scientific proof. The modern writer, a scientist (as he is all

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Reason in Madness: "A Tale of a Tub"

through the Tale) who does not trust the senses, or a mechanist philosopher who uses logic or imagination to go beyond the evidence of
sense, or a destructive satirist, has attempted to discredit reason but has
succeeded only in showing the ridiculousness of complete distrust of the
senses and experience.
The reader's commonsense attitudes enable him to see the ridiculousness of either of the modern author's extremes, and "reason" retains its
usual meaning in the paragraph, rather than being identified with extreme curiosity. At the end of the paragraph the modern author rejects
both pretended philosophy and reason, and praises the man who can
"content his ideas with the films and images that fly off upon his senses
from the superficies of things." "Such a man," he says, "truly wise,
creams off nature, leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up." Philosophy and reason, not philosophy which is the same
as reason; if philosophy means "pretended philosophy" (and it can of
course refer to true or reasonable philosophy) the distinction is carefully
preserved. Reason remains as the faculty which allows an individual to
judge for himself, on the basis of past experience, whether a particular
object or action is good or bad for him, which enables him to see things
as they are for him.
And the man who judged for himself, confronted with the statement
that only sour and dregs are left for reason and philosophy to lap up,
would react with the attitude that what the modern called sour and dregs
could be, if not pure cream, at least palatable. Swift shared the philosophical position as well as the rhetorical theory of the Anglicans, and
according to them reason was not expected to lead either to cynicism or
to perfect felicity, but to contentment. Isaac Barrow says in a sermon on
contentment: "But if we judge of things, as God declareth, as impartial
and cautious reason dictateth, as experience diligently observed (by their
fruits and consequences) discovereth them to be, we shall have little
cause to be affected by the want or presence of any such thing which is
wont to produce discontent" (III, 123). The psychological effect which
the Tale is constructed to produce in the reasonable reader, who judges
things "as experience diligently observed (by their fruits and consequences) discovereth them to be," is contentment, a "mighty level in the
felicity and enjoyments of mortal men."
Swift's particular concern in the Tale is with persuading people to
think for themselves, not about beaux or harlots or madness or learning
or religion, but about delusive rhetoric, which he and the Anglicans saw
as one of the main causes, if not the main cause, of human discontent.
And in the Digression on Madness he compels his readers to use their
own judgment by presenting them with rhetoric which is so lacking in

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217

common sense that it sets the reader's mind upon its mettle. The
modern writer tries to convince his audience that they should blindly
accept whatever he says, including his implicit attitude that beaux and
harlots are all they seem on the surface, and he offers as the only alternative a completely negative attitude that all "nature," like the beaux and
harlots, is worthless, and that the writer or speaker cannot follow nature
or he will reveal nothing but corruption. He gives the reader a choice
of "an art to sodder and patch up the flaws and imperfections of nature"
or the art, "so much in present esteem, of widening and exposing" the
flaws and imperfections of nature. But Swift leaves the way open for
the reader to realize that nature is not represented by beaux and harlots
and consequently that nature is not so corrupt that it has to be patched
up, and that a rational orator can follow nature and help us to see things
as they are.
Throughout the Tale of a Tub Swift follows a similar pattern. The reader is constantly given two unacceptable alternatives because the modern
author, using his imagination and avoiding the use of reason, flies too
high or sinks too low. There is an important clue to Swift's method, in
the celebrated Bird of Paradise passage in Section vIIi:
And whereasthe mindof Man, whenhe gives the spurand bridleto his thoughts,
doth never stop, but naturallysallies out into both extremes,of high and low,
of good and evil; his first flight of fancy commonlytransportshim to ideas of
what is most perfect, finished,and exalted; till, having soared out of his own
reachand sight, not well perceivinghow near the frontiersof height and depth
borderuponeachother;with the samecourseand wing,he falls downplumbinto
the lowest bottom of things, like one who travels the east into the west, or like
a straightline drawnby its ownlengthinto a circle.Whethera tinctureof malice
in our natures make us fond of furnishingevery bright idea with its reverse;
or whetherreason,reflectingupon the sum of things, can, like the sun, serve
only to enlighten one half of the globe, leaving the other half by necessity
under shade and darkness;or, whetherfancy, flying up to the imaginationof
what is highestand best, becomesovershot,and spent, and weary,and suddenly
falls, like a deadbirdof paradise,to the ground;or whether,afterall these metaphysicalconjectures,I have not entirelymissedthe true reason;the proposition,
however,which has stood me in so muchcircumstance,is altogethertrue....
The modern author has used only his "fancy" and has "entirely missed
the true reason." But by making the two extremes ridiculous and indicating that the reader must find his own meaning, using his common
sense, Swift appeals to reason, using the methods of the Anglicans'
rational rhetoric.
In effect, the Tale of a Tub is a dialogue between two kinds of delusive
orators, both contained within the schizoid modern author; the one, the

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Reason in Madness: "A Tale of a Tub"

author as he sees himself, uses abstractions and obscurity, finds everything good, and warns us against those who would strip off the fair exterior; the other, the modern as he is unconsciously, uses particulars
which reveal rottenness everywhere and is thus a vitriolic satirist. Both
of them are dogmatists, who try to force their attitudes on the audience.
But Swift is neither naive panegyrist nor bitter cynic and he is not trying to force his opinions upon the sane reader. In the Digression Concerning Critics, for example, the panegyrist defines and praises his True
Critic in general terms as "a discoverer and collector of writers' faults,"
but he unconsciously reveals his satiric nature in his particular references
to critics as asses without horns, snarling dogs, young rats, and serpents
without teeth. Now Swift is certainly not trying to get the reader to
believe that critics should collect writers' faults, nor on the other hand
is he saying that all critics are serpents without teeth. If he believed the
latter he would hardly write the critical and satiric Tale of a Tub. He
clearly indicates the normal view of a critic as a restorer of ancient manuscripts or one who invents and draws up rules for himself and the world,
"by observing which, a careful reader might be able to pronounce upon
the productions of the learned, form his taste to a true relish of the sublime and the admirable, and divide every beauty of matter and style
from the corruption that apes it." The reasonable reader can accept
this definition because such a critic allows him to use his own judgment,
and he can see, furthermore, that Swift is this kind of a critic in the Tale.
Swift is drawing up rules by illustrating the principles of rational rhetoric
that particulars communicate more clearly than generals, that references
to commonsense experiences give a reader a chance to use his own reason,
and that the author's attitudes should not be imposed on the reader.
The modern author as unconscious satirist is a rational orator in his use
of particular references to commonsense experiences, but he mistakes
his mad and rotten world for the normal and natural world. Swift appeals
to reason because he compels the reader to see that the modern author
has gone too far and stimulates the reader's normal and natural responses.
In the same way, in other digressions, the Grubaean praises modern
writing, unaware of the fact that he exposes it by his particular references,
and Swift indicates the reasonable norm of good writing. A Digression
in the Modern Kind starts with a panegyric on the moderns' "great
design of an everlasting remembrance, and never-dying fame," which
they have accomplished because their endeavors have been "so highly
serviceable to the general good of mankind." This is a valid (though
pompous and general) statement of some of the aims of literature (it
deals only with utile, not with dulce). But the modern continues, "To

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this end, I have some time since, with a world of pains and art, dissected the carcass of human nature, and read many useful lectures upon
the several parts, both containing and contained; till at last it smelt so
strong, I could preserve it no longer." Such a statement makes it clear to
the reader that "modern" writing is ridiculous and that writingwhich
will last and serve the general good must deal with man as a reasonable
animal, not a dead carcass; it must follow nature, not the warped fancies
of a cynic. And later in the same digression Swift makes his position
clearer by having the modern praise Wotton's "sublime discoveries upon
the subject of flies and spittle" and his own New Help of Smatterers, or
the Art of Being Deep-learned and Shallow-read, while at the same time
he condemns Homer because of his unsatisfactory dissertation upon tea
and his unreliable method of salivation without mercury. Homer, who
follows nature, who is concerned with man, who instructs by pleasing,
and whose poetry has served the general good of mankind, is presented
as a norm, making clearer the ridiculousness of the modern writer's
high pretences to fame and value and of his disgusting and unnatural
methods and attitudes.
The same technique operates in the other digressions, in the prefatory
material, and, though less obviously, in the coat allegory. From the beginning of the coat allegory, the modern author concentrates on the fair
exterior of man and religion and finds it good; man is a suit of colorful
and beautiful clothes and religion is a cloak. As long as he stays at the
surface and deals in obscure generalizations, the modern finds nothing
to blame. But the moment he looks below the surface he finds only corruption; under the suit of clothes, man is nothing but a senseless unsavory carcass, and conscience is a pair of breeches which covers lewdness
as well as nastiness and "is easily slipt down for the service of both."
Swift thus appeals to reason, using details of common experience, to
make it clear from the beginning that we are to accept neither the modern's superficial optimism nor his underlying cynicism about man and
religion. As the coat allegory continues, the coats take on more fantastic
decorations and the "religious" projects of Jack and Peter become an
increasingly thin veil for the corruption underneath; Peter invents the
whispering office for the ease of midwives, bawds, parasites, and buffoons,
"in short, of all such as are in danger of bursting with too much wind,"
and Jack invents the sect of Aeolists, who maintain that the original
cause of all things is wind. The modern author continues to praise Jack
and Peter, but his particular references to objects of experience emphasize strongly the madness and rottenness of their projects; the Aeolists
propagate their doctrines by belching, and the sourer the better; the

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Reason in Madness: "A Tale of a Tub"

modern quotes approvingly Jack's statement that the "eyes of the understanding see best, when those of the senses are out of the way," but he
shows Jack bouncing his head into a post or falling into a kennel.
Using the objects of ordinary experience, Swift thus makes it impossible for a reader to accept either of the modern writer's extremes. His
chief emphasis is upon making ridiculous both windy panegyric and
anatomizing satire. But Swift does not fall into the trap he has laid for
the modern; he does not content himself with widening and exposing
flaws but sodders up the imperfections which the modern has found in
nature. He provides a norm for the reader in the will, the New Testament, which can be interpreted and applied if man uses his reason, and
which does not prescribe religious factionalism but, as Martin says in
Section vi, "agreement and friendship and affection" between religious
sects. Swift's religious position is that the individual must use his own
reason in interpreting and following the truths of the New Testament.
But since the Tale of a Tub is not primarily concerned with religion,
particularly not with Swift's religious opinions, Swift does not develop
this normal attitude. His function in the Tale is to force readers to think
for themselves about religion and other matters and to warn them against
delusive rhetoric, which was to be found particularly in religious writing
and speaking. Having done that, it was his rhetorical theory that the
rest was up to the individual reason; as he said in Contestsand Dissensions
in Greeceand Rome, "common sense and plain reason, while men are disengaged from acquired opinions, will ever have some general influence
upon their minds."
In the same way, using two unacceptable extremes, Swift compels the
reader to use his own judgment in determining the structure of the Tale.
On the one hand the modern author, using abstractions, praises digressions, those "late refinements in knowledge," as a "great modern improvement"; but when he descends to particulars he unwittingly denounces digressions completely. He compares books containing digressions to soups and fricassees and ragouts and says that some people
argue "that digressions in a book, are like foreign troops in a state, which
argue the nation to want a heart and hands of its own, and often either
subdue the natives, or drive them into the most unfruitful corners."
Swift is certainly not praising digressions, nor is he saying that a writer
must write directly and simply and avoid all seeming digressions. He is
concerned rather with encouraging the reader to find the heart and the
hands of a book for himself and determine what is relevant. In the Tale
of a Tub he compels the reader to determine exactly what constitutes a
digression, by labeling the more important sections of the book digressions, putting his announcement of the subject in an Introduction, and

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forcing the reader to ferret out for himself the subject and its development. Swift makes the unity of the Tale clear, as I have tried to show,
if we read with extreme care and do not take the modern author seriously.
The book is concerned with rhetoric, it is written consistently from the
point of view of the modern author, a delusive orator, and the various
sections are tied together not only by the subject and the narrator but
by the various themes and images-the clothes philosophy and the tailor
image, for example-which run through the whole book.
Swift uses the rhetoric of reason, then, at the same time that he exposes delusive rhetoric. He uses words which refer to commonsense
experiences, he defines his abstractions by means of particulars, he does
not impose his opinions, and he uses the method of example rather than
giving us precepts. Isaac Barrow said that in a good example, "you see
at once described the thing done, the quality of the actor, the manner of
doing, the minute seasons, measures, and adjuncts of the action; with
all which you might not perhaps by numerous rules be acquainted; and
this in the most facile, familiar, and delightful way of instruction, which
is by experience, history, and observation of sensible events" (II, 500).
It is because the quality of the actor, the modern author, is made so
clear by his mad opinions and projects that the reader of the Tale cannot
accept either his superficial and abstract precepts or his personal and
bitter attacks. Because Swift was exposing delusive rhetoric he used
an extreme example of a delusive orator as his narrator, and the appeal
to reason in the Tale is hidden deep beneath the madness. But it is worth
looking for, not merely because the Tale of a Tub is delightful and amusing and exhibits most impressively Swift's "vehemence and rapidity of
mind, ... copiousness of images, and vivacity of diction," but because
the book is perhaps the most skillful and important piece of rhetorical
criticism in the English language. It is Swift's Essay on Rhetorical Criticism, and no one knew better than Swift the ways language could be
misused as well as the ways it could be used best. It is a work which is
relevant not only to seventeenth-century literature but to all literature
which aims to persuade; the characteristics of sophistic rhetoric have not
changed and the principles of rational rhetoric, which are essentially the
principles of classical rhetoric, are still valid.
Tempting as it is to follow the modern author's advice and "take seven
of the deepest scholars . . .and shut them up close for seven years in
seven chambers, with a command to write seven ample commentaries on
this comprehensive discourse," it is more to the point to set readers to
work at reading and understanding the Tale as a work of criticism.
While it is a richer and more amazing work if we are familiar with all
varieties of seventeenth-century literature, the principles and examples

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still apply to our modern philosophical, religious, political, scientific,

and popular speaking and writing, and of course to literature in the narrow sense, if we peruse the book "with a world of application, again and
again." As Mrs. Starkman points out, we are the heirs of Swift's "moderns," and though Swift failed to exterminate the moderns of his day
that is no reason for not giving him a chance to warn us against the
dangers of abstraction, obscurity, factionalism, and formlessness in
our modern rhetoric. If Swift's principles are not directly applicable to
modern rhetoric, still the experience of reading and understanding the
Tale of a Tub can help to teach us what to look for and what to look out
for. The Tale is not easy to understand (as this essay may testify entirely
too well) but in spite of the complexity the book can communicate precisely and clearly. And in times like Swift's and ours, precise communication must be difficult.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

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